weekend recap

It has been a while since I have updated my blog which feels weird but I do have two race reports half done... Mostly I blame the insane weather last week. It got up to 106 °F on Tuesday and stayed well in the 90 till the weekend so when I was away from the AC at work the last thing I felt like doing was turning on my laptop.
Anyways.. Training has been going really well. I had a week full of tempo and hill repeats which was extra challenging in the heat. But with a lot of gatorade and ice I got through it all with out any real problems. I do find it kind of funny that the first week I get to do a lot of tempo work it was so hot.
Luckily it cooled down to mid to high 80s over the weekend for my long workouts. On Saturday I got the ok from Kainoa to tag along with laurie on her long brick workout. So we got started around 7am to get out before it got to hot. Laurie mapped out a great route: out the Marymoor trail to Woodinville then a right onto Paradise Lake Road, to Mink Road to Union Hill into the Valley and over to the Beaver Lake Tri course and then over the Plateau and back to her place. It was a great mix of hills and a little bit of flats in the middle. She had ran 20 miles the day before so I was able to keep up on the flats and my legs were kind of tired from the full week of intervals so it worked out perfectly. My nutrition was the only lack luster part. I have not really found a replacement gel since Accel gel changed their recipe.. so I ate a hodgepodge of stuff and the Cliff shot turned my stomach pretty bad. Thankfully with the heat and hills helped settle my stomach.. But I never really felt like I was very well fueled. Oh well I got time to keep trying things and hopefully will find something sooner rather than later.
Once we got back we headed out on the East Lake Sammamish trail for her :60 min run off the bike.. I only had to do :30 but figured it would be more fun to tag along with her. Since my nutrition was not perfect on the bike the first :30 running out were a bit rough. It was hot and I was way under fueled. Thankfully we ran toward Whole foods and was able to run in and refill my hand bottle with cold water and even just stepping in the AC for a min helped so much. So the run back was way better and we even picked up the pace the last couple of minutes.
The best part of all was once we were done we immediately jumped in the lake to cool off. It felt SO good. Not to mention Eric had just made fresh bread and they had cold chocolate milk ready.
So after a snack and short visit I headed hoem for an ice bath and what turned into a 3 hour nap with Toko (my cat) till Kyle and I headed to his Mom's pace for dinner :)

Now since I decided to tag along with Laurie on Saturday I moved my long run to Sunday.. I knew it would kind of hurt since it was a 2 hour run and the past 2 weeks I have been more focused on shorter stuff and then with the long brick the day before..I headed out around 8a and decided to run flat so that I could at least survive. Laurie was nice enough to let me run from her place even though they would not be home. So I ran the East lake Samm trail again. I did not want to have to carry more that my hand bottle so I did 2 :60 min loops with whole foods at the :30 min mark.
My first loop felt surprisingly good. I stayed in my low heartrate zones like I was supposed to and kept a nice little pace going. I did find out that my hand bottle did not seal very well anymore so my hand was getting covered in gatorade :/ but at whole foods I filled my bottle with plain cold water and it was fine..
I headed back out on the second loop and I forgot to grab a gel so by 1:30 mark I was starting to hit the wall. My legs were tired and it was getting warmer so I went into whole foods and got a pack of luna moons to eat with the 3 cliff blocks I had. As I headed back I did not feel good and my pace slowed a lot. I wound up motivating myself by running for 10 min and then let myself grab a few black berries along the trail and repeated this till I was done. I immediately jumped in the lake to cool off and drank a recovery shake before heading back home for an ice bath. I ate a little bit of left overs and headed to my Mom's house for a Garden party :). Toko was very annoyed that i did not stay home for a nap.

All in all not to bad a weekend and time to bring on another week full of training :)

Ironman 70.3 Hawaii 2009 Race Report

On race morning just like I prefer to do I got up super early so we could be to to T1 with tons of extra time to spare and no need to rush. Kyle pumped my tires, I filled my bike bottles and salt sticks, I made sure my bike shoes had lots of glide in them so no blisters and random other small details. I also realized the best part about getting to T1 early is no lines for the porta potties and they don't stink yet.
After getting body marked and another quick review of the bike we headed down to the beach to hang out and get ready for the swim. We got a quick pic of all the people from the team Pauole Sport that did the race. (Eric, Laurie, Aaron, Mike, me)
Of course had to get a few more pre swim pics - at least this time I did not cry when my Mom hugged me like in Clearwater. and with that I was off to go get in the water.

I decided to start out in the water rather than on the beach so I swam out into the masses and found a sport in the middle of it all. The current kept pushing everyone past the start line so they moved us back a couple of time till finally the cannon went off to my surprise lol. I remember thinking "oh ok was that the start already".I felt pretty good. There was a little chop on the water but nothing worse then the pool at masters swim. I love how clear the water is - you can see all the people around you and avoid getting kicked most of the time. I do have to say that the people(seemed to be mostly guys) that stop and breast stoke suck. They all of sudden start kicking sideways and I got a few kicks in the ribs and sucks. The only other annoyances/issues was that my swim cap kept sliding back off my forehead so I had to pull it back on a couple times.. Anyways I felt good and just swam my best. I stayed mostly on course and felt like I was more in the middle of things than in previous years. The waves mostly brought me into shore and I still felt happy about my swim overall. Then I focused on trying not to fall on my way up the beach.. Then I ran up the hill to the rest of T1, pulled the speed suit off, shoes on, helmet, glasses, race belt and I was off.. I am so glad no one I knew saw what happened next - after peddling for a minute I thought it felt like my rear tire was flat or low and tried to look at it. Now coming out of the water I don't always have the best balance so I acted like a total clutz and rode my bike off the pavement and into the gravel almost tipped over.. and stopped and checked my tire all the while feeling like a total dork when it was fine.

I started the bike with a little bit of fear that my leg/hip would hurt and have issues so I focused on smooth circles, just getting into a rhythm and start getting in the nutrition. Before checking my bike on Friday Kyle had move my seat back just a little bit and by the turn around at Mauna Lani I could tell my hip was not getting as tight as it had been. so I picked up the effort some but at the same time my legs felt alright but not super perky.
I felt good through the rollers and continued to be surprised and happy my leg did not hurt but i did find that I felt the climbs more in the glutes than normal.. and stayed with it. I took a salt every :30, sport legs every :30, a gel every hour and drank frequently.. I had started with 1 bottle of acceleraid and at the second aid station I tossed it and grabbed another bottle of gatorade. I am done with it - it was upsetting my stomach. So the rest of the race I just drank gatorade endurance (I could hear Kyle cheering - he hates the stuff and how it leaves gunk in bottles afterwards).
Laurie passed me at some point and we cheered for each other - I think she even said see you on the run..
The climb up Hawi was not to bad till got to the final climb and the headwind that joined in on the fun. The best part is I finally felt warmed up and found my rhythm so I passed a lot of people on the climbs which always feels good :) Thank you hill repeats.
I faced one of my biggest fears on the way back down and I continued to stay in my aero bars and no touching the brakes :) (teeth chattering smile). Mostly I was just soooo happy that I made it up to Hawi with no leg pain. I was a bit bummed to see that I was a bit off my desired time but at that point i did not care to much just knowing my leg did not hurt. So I stayed focused and kept up on my nutrition all the way back to T2.
On the turn off from the Queen K I found it funny that most people seemed to act like the bike part was over even though there was 3 more miles - so even though I was not supposed to not pass I did.. a bunch. and just like that I was in T2.
I came in dropped the bike, grabbed my run bag, switch shoes, switch helmet for hat and grab gel bottle. I looked for volunteers putting sunblock on but did not see any, considered the porta potties but did not want to waist time so off I went on the run.


And it started on the grass of course... (got to love the gel packet hanging out of my shorts)
I started off easy just get my leg under me and see how things would play out. I actually felt pretty good, a little bit of a sloshy stomach but nothing the heat would not burn off (or so I hoped).
They changed the run course so having done the race the last 2 years did not help out a ton.. I knew the parts of the course that were on the road but the other 6 miles were a mystery on grass. By mile 2 or so my stomach started to settle and I focused on keeping my temp down. I walked the aid stations and made sure to drink gatorade, toss cold water on my head, grab ice, sponges, and if they had them orange slices (mmmm).
I kept going back and forth with one gal, we would pass each other then be walking the aid station - so started talking.. We wound up running and chatting and just kept running together. It was great - made the run fly by even though the course was so difficult. I was not even paying attention to time, we just ran between each aid station, got what we needed and kept running. Only once or twice we walked up a hill or something. It was funny it was not till after running together for a couple miles we asked our names. lol And in no time we were heading down into the long out and back into the lava (mile 9ish). As always this sucked and seemed longer than in years past but we ran down and were able to run all the way back out. I passed Laurie from Pauole Sport at some point on the way back up (she seemed to expect it was going to happen) and we cheered each other one. Once at the top we started picking up the pace as much as we could knowing that we would be done sooner that way.
It was great to see T2 and the turn to the finish line. I still felt pretty good but mostly was just ready to be done.. As we turned toward the finish Joy (#1242 in the pic) wanted to kick it in strong and in that she out kicked me and beat me by a couple seconds lol.



And just like that it was over - I was done..


Overall finisher 637/1057
Age group finish 24/44
Overall time 06:27:55
Swim 41:10
T1 3:32
Bike 3:24:45
T2 2:39
Run 2:15:50


A few post race photos as well



Love the sponge still in the back of my top.

Yeah I am sooo strong

James and I

Mom and I

Best of all the ice bath (Kyle finally pulled the sponge out of my jersey)

big weekend in the heat

Saturday morning we all headed out onto the Queen K for a bike ride. We all started together but really I only stayed on their wheels for about 5 min or as soon as we got on to the Queen K they were gone. The boys were planning on 3-4 hours - riding up to Hawi and back.. I only needed to do about 2:30 with a few pick ups.
With in the first 20 min I got a flat on my front tire :( I started to change it and realized that i was missing a lever (I need both to get my tire off). I called Kyle and he was nice enough to ride back and help me - he had it changed in under a minute.
Then it was back at it. Kyle sped off quickly to see if he could meet back up with James and I continued at my pace. I headed up on the course towards Hawi. It was night and day to last year - Ifeel a lot stronger and best of all no winds at all really. It was amazing. Toasty but amazing.I rode for 1:15 and then turned around and headed back. It was around an hour in that my right leg started acting up again - the same pull on the knee but this time I used it as training for how to mentally deal with it in the race.. I stayed focused and work on smooth circles... I did pickups the rest of the way back - 10 min at race pace - 10 min recovery and in no time I was back and heading out on a run.
My run of the bike felt great all the pain in my leg just disappeared. I took the first :15 min nice and easy out and then did 1 min pickups back. It was so hot but I had a small fuel bottle and had practiced race nutrition on the bike so I felt surprisingly good :) Though as soon as I was back it was a ice cold recovery drink and a cold shower for me.

Sunday James and I had "long" runs to do while Kyle headed out on a 3 hour bike ride with some Kona locals. I wanted to run a little earlier before it got really really hot while James wanted to run in the full heat so we alternated running and riding support or each other - which was awesome. I got started around 7:30am and ran on the pavement portion on the run course. Even that early it was already getting hot. I drank every mile and salt every :30 min, then had gel at :45 to sort of simulate race nutrition.. Even though it felt like it was getting hotter every minute in the last 15 min of the run I did 1 min pickups with James watching the clock for me. It was perfect - I was tired and hot but i was able to get the feet moving and felt good.
We waited an hour or so before James headed out so I could recover a bit. He is a monster - the heat did not even seem to phase him. But it worked out perfect for me - riding next to him while he rode gave me a chance to loosen up my legs and spend some needed time in the heat.
Once Kyle got back we all went down to the beach for a short little recovery swim and nap :) And with that I started my full taper.

let the heat training begin

It is kind of funny to say that as the title - since I'm finally taking some time to write this only because it is POURING rain outside. Oh well here goes (don't worry it will be mostly photos).

We flew into Kona on Thursday morning and hung out at the airport waited for James, my Mom and Jerry to get in. It would up being a couple of hours wait because our flight got in a little early and both of theirs a little late. But most important was our bikes and our gear all arrived in one piece.
Once all of us where in town and settled we headed immediately to the beach for a quick swim before it got to dark. James was nice enough to do a little dance in his mini skirt towel for us after swimming.
As the sun set James and I went for a short easy :30 min run just to start getting used to the heat and loosen the legs up. To my surprised when we got back Kyle had already got my bike put together and was starting on his :)

Friday morning Kyle, James and I dropped in on the masters swim at the Kona pool. Coach Borowski was awesome - he put us in lanes and we got started. The lane I started in was a little bit fast for me so I moved down one about 800 yrds into the workout and it was perfect. It was a good workout - I think about 3400 yrds but really I just focused on staying with my lane. Afterwards I got to meet Bree Wee and a few other locals before we headed directly to Starbucks.

Once back to to Mauna Lani the boys finished up building the bikes and then we decided before breakfast to go do another swim but this time in the ocean. We grabbed our bikes and rode down. We swam for about :45 min and then sat on the beach for a little bit enjoying the warm sun before riding our bikes back :)
The rest of the day was spent playing with bikes and generally goofing off.
Once again as the sun was going down I went for a easy :30 min run, this time Kyle joined me and james rode his bike. My legs have felt really good and I liked running when it was warm but not to hot just to ease into the whole hot sun thing.